Little Scarlet Book

Little Scarlet takes Walter Mosley's bitter African American investigator Easy Rawlins into the era of the Watts riots--these novels are fine stand-alone novels of investigation and jeopardy that also function as an informal history of America's post-war racial history. Easy finds himself working for the Man, for a change, though with his own agenda--rumour has it that the riots started because of the murder of a local woman by her white lover, and the Los Angeles police want a lid on the case. Easy, predisposed to look for guilty white men, finds himself having to tell people things that they do not want to hear, and in the process uncovering police failures going back years. Like all of Mosley's books, this is an angry indictment, but also a novel filled with moments of casual kindness and regret - the Easy Rawlins of the later novels is less of an avenging angel, more a man made more gentle by fatherhood. Like all of Mosley's thrillers, this is more or less an instant classic. ---Roz KaveneyRead More